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Gillian Bowditch: Where are all the campus firebrands?

It was Stalin who opened my eyes to the futility of student politics in Britain. The year was 1986 and the politics specialism on the postgraduate journalism course I was intermittently attending was oversubscribed. The professor decided the fairest way to allocate the places was to ask for a demonstration of political commitment.

Various scrawny youths, with wardrobes full of black polo necks and Leonard Cohen record collections, talked up their membership of their university's Liberal Society or confessed, sotto voce, to being young Tories. Then it was Stalin's turn. Stalin Lenin Napoleon Mau Mau, to give him his full name, turned a withering gaze on the assembled crew and said: "I was one of Mugabe's freedom fighters."

A former Commonwealth flyweight champion turned boxing promoter, he later stood for Zanu-PF in the 2000 Zimbabwean election, alongside Chenjerai Hitler Hunzvi, leading to headlines proclaiming that Stalin and Hitler were both